Kia begins big eco push

BMW started it with EfficientDynamics, Mercedes has BlueEFFICIENCY, while Skoda uses GreenLine and Ford favours ECOnetic. Over at Volkswagen it's BlueMotion. What do all these tags have in common – apart from an appalling disregard for rules of punctuation and capitalisation? They're all eco-brands of the major motor manufacturers.

Now Kia has joined the club. After a not particularly imaginative bit of lexicographical mixing and matching, the Korean manufacturer has come up with the EcoDynamics badge for the cleanest and most frugal versions of its cars.

That said, there's some real substance behind the the new name. Most immediately, there's a new version of the Golf-sized cee'd fitted with a fuel-saving stop-start system but the company is also showing a number of hybrid models at the Frankfurt Motor Show under the EcoDyamics banner. Kia already has one hybrid in production, the Forte LPI saloon, which is presently sold in Korea and uses an LPG-powered internal combustion engine. The company is bringing 36 Forte hybrids to Europe as a toe-in-the-water exercise for tests with the press, government bodies and environmental organisations. The Forte is being shown at Frankfurt alongside two hybrid concept cars – a cee'd using a petrol-powered drivetrain similar to that fitted to the Forte, and a hybrid version of the new mid-sized Sorento SUV that uses a small but high-output (163 horsepower) 1.6 litre diesel engine paired with a 40 horsepower electric motor.